HIH Prince Cengiz Nazim Passed Away

TURKOFAMERICA, first Turkish-American magazine, conducted an interview (http://www.turkofamerica.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1778&Itemid=0)  with him recently and he had talked about his life.

The Prince lived in Egypt until he was 20. When things became complicated in Egypt, he came over to the US. He was helped by a friend of his maternal family to attend university in Oklahoma. Ara Öztemel was a successful businessman doing trade between the USA and the Soviets.  After wandering around in New York for a little at the invitation of Mr Öztemel, Prince Cengiz Nazim  moved to Oklahoma to start college, and, he attended school for two years with the support of his mother, his uncle Kemali Söylemezoğlu,  and his stepfather Mithat Perin. He then attended the University of Oklahoma. While attendes the university, he delivered pizzas. He was saying, “Then, I got promoted and began to make pizzas. And for some time, I also worked as a cashier.” He used to go to school in the mornings and work for the rest of the day at three different part-time jobs: at Trans World Airlines, at a tourism agency, and as a pizza-guy.

At first, he wanted to be a chemical engineer. When he started working at the Trans World Airlines while in college, he thought that it would not make much sense to study chemistry and work in an airlines company, as he wanted to make a career in airline transportation. He was saying, “If I were to work in a job that required a college degree, it could have been any degree. I liked Political Science, so, I chose that.” He also helped his brother Prince Ziya Effendi, who is now a retired pilot from Emirates Airlines, his brother Prince Hasan Orhan Osmanoğlu, as well as his other brother Selçuk Perin who was brought to the USA but returned Turkey. However, Ziya Effendi returned to Jordan.

After finishing school, he left Oklahoma and settled in California and worked for TWA. He left the airline business in 1971 and joined a trucking company in Oklahoma. Later, he created his own business, named Texas Star Express, in Texas from scratch, and turned it into a fleet with 130 trucks. Health issues created a situation in which he and his partner needed to sell the company. This caught the attention of Epes Carriers in North Carolina. He sold the transportation firm his company Texas Star Express, which had reached 18 million-dollars revenue from zero, in 1991. At the request of the Chairman of Epes, he worked at the company in Texas, then moved to North Carolina as an executive and helped start up Epes Logistics. He was there between the years 1995-2011. He met his wife Suzanne here in 1997 and got married in 1998. When Prince Cengiz Nazim retired in November 2011, he started a Transportation Management Company, Nazim & Associates LLC to continued working in a semi retired status. He and his wife Suzanne, who is a also in Real Estate sales, were working together in this endeavor.

“Many people made positive impacts on my life in the U.S. One in particular was the Chairman of Epes Carriers, Alvin M. Bodford, who mentored and supported my role for many years. I am forever grateful to him,” Prince Cengiz Nazim said.

Prince Cengiz Nazim, who has two grandchildren, Peri Kathleen (21) and Zekeriya (19) from his daughter Ayşe (51) who was born in Oklahoma, as well as a son Ziyaeddin (48), who was born in California, still works as director editor at the Cox Cable company. Prince Ziyaeddin, who is the third Prince living in the USA after Prince Osman Bayezıd Effendi and his father Prince Cengiz Nazim, is married and has not got any children. Prince Cengiz Nazim’s mother, Perizad Söylemezoğlu, who was born in 1918, passed away last September, 2015. His mother got married to the famous journalist Mithat Perin after getting divorced from Prince Mehmed Nazim. In addition, the famous composer Şehrazat is also the Prince’s cousin. He also had eight step grandchildren from his marriage to his wife Suzanne Shotwell Nazim.